environment

March in Trinidad, Bolivia, against a proposed highway that would go through part of the Amazon, August 15.

By Federico Fuentes

September 25, 2011 -- Green Left Weekly -- Statements, articles, letters and petitions have been circulating on
the internet for the past month calling for an end to the "destruction
of the Amazon". The target of these initiatives has not been transnational
corporations or the powerful governments that back them, but the
government of Bolivia's first Indigenous president, Evo Morales.

At the centre of the debate is the Bolivian government’s
controversial proposal to build a highway through the Isiboro Secure
National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS). TIPNIS, which covers more than 1 million hectares of forest, was
granted Indigenous territory status by the Morales government in 2009.
About 12,000 people from three different Indigenous groups live in 64
communities within TIPNIS.

"What
is clear from ... Magdoff and Foster, is that 'what
every environmentalist needs to know about capitalism' is that: 1) it is the
root cause of the environmental crisis, 2) capitalism is incapable of solving
it, either by going green or by becoming non-growth.'

September 10, 2011 -- Green Left Weekly -- Economist, activist and writer Derek Wall (pictured above) is a member of the Green Party of England and Wales (and the Green Left grouping within it) and is the author of several books on ecology and politics. Wall will speak via video link at the Climate Change Social Change activist conference in Melbourne,r September 30 to October 3. He maintains the ecosocialist blog Another Green World. He spoke to Green Left Weekly’s Simon Butler about the politics of ecosocialism.

* * *

What are the most valuable insights ecosocialists can bring to discussions about the source of our ecological problems?

Ecosocialism, without being reductionist, cuts to the roots of the
ecological crisis. The destruction of the environment is not an
accident. It is not simply a problem of false ideas and it is not a
product of inappropriate policies that can easily be dealt with by
electing a new set of politicians.

September 8, 2011 -- Green Left Weekly-- The decision by leaders of the Sub Central of the Indigenous
Territory and National Isiboro Secure Park (TIPNIS) to initiate a
500-kilometre protest march on Bolivia's capital of La Paz has
ignited much debate about the nature of Bolivia’s first Indigenous
led-government. The Sub Central of TIPNIS unites the 64 indigenous communities within the park.

Much analysis has focused on the supposed hypocrisy of the government
headed by Evo Morales, Bolivia's first Indigenous head of state. The
Morales government has been criticised for pursuing pro-capitalist
development and trampling on the rights of its own Indigenous people.

Many analysts have also highlighted the contradiction between
Morales’ public discourse in defence of Indigenous rights and Mother
Earth, and the proposal of his government’s to build a highway that
would run through this protected area of the Amazon.

June 2011 – Lalit [the
revolutionary socialist party in Mauritius] sees
the natural universe, whether it be the air above us, the sea around us or the Earth we walk upon, and all that lives upon it, and even outer space, as being
our collective heritage as human beings. We are part of it, and also the
guardians of it. This natural universe, our Mother Earth, is now endangered.

Our planet is already
suffering irreversible damage, damage so serious as to threaten the very
existence of the totality of human civilisation in all its varied forms. We
humans have the minds to know this.

The threat is posed by our
own human-made forms of agricultural and industrial “development”. This is
serious because it is our way of survival that has become this destructiveness.

The main damage has been
done in the past 250 years. Increasingly serious damage is being done. And yet
most of us are oblivious to it, and once we know, we are “helpless”. We sit and
watch a potential meltdown of a nuclear plant in Japan, as the capitalists who
run it admit their own helplessness.

Appeal of the Second International Conference of Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin

Hanoi, Socialist Republic of Vietnam

August 9, 2011 -- The Second International Conference of Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin, held in Hanoi from August 8 to 9, 2011, included participants from around the world: Agent Orange victims, victims of other toxic chemicals, scientists, lawyers and social activists. The conference is a significant and important historic event, marking the 50th anniversary of the first spraying of the toxic chemical Agent Orange (1961-1971) by the US forces in Vietnam and Indochina.

The delegates to the conference agree that:

During the Vietnam War, from 1961 to 1971, US forces through Operation Ranch Hand sprayed nearly 80 million litrrs of herbicides over South Vietnam, of which 61% was Agent Orange containing at least 366kg of dioxin, the most toxic substance known to science.

August 13, 2011 -- Green Left Weekly -- We all know there’s a big problem with the environment and it needs
drastic action to fix it. So does a Marxist analysis of the problem
bring anything new to the table?

Marxism redefines the terms of the mainstream environmental debate.
Instead of seeing the problem as one of humans versus nature, the
problem is framed as one where humans and nature are intrinsically
linked and ecological crises arise in which the relationship between the
two is thrown into imbalance.

I think a Marxist analysis best describes the connection between
human society and the rest of nature in a historical perspective. From
this we can better understand the current crises and humanity’s task for
the foreseeable future.

Capitalism

First, a few things to keep in mind about capitalism. Under the laws
of the capitalist system, profits must continually expand or the system
will collapse. This expansion has taken new forms over history, involving different
combinations of exploitation of people, the environment and a fair share
of economic trickery and speculation.

August 11, 2011 -- Unityblog -- The crises of global capitalism, coupled with catastrophic climate
change and peak resources, is going to bring about profound social,
ecological and political upheavals.

There is evidence of this happening globally already. We can point to
the Arab revolts that have toppled US-backed regimes and the emergence
of anti-neoliberal movements of workers and young people in a number of
European countries. Part of the context for these revolts is the global
financial crisis, which is ongoing and will unravel further, impacting
severely on the lives of grassroots people around the world.

While the current political situation in New Zealand is a big step away
from mass revolt, the forces at work in this country are similar. Masses
of ordinary people are hurting, there’s simmering anger towards
politicians and other corporate elites, and there’s growing concern at
the ecological catastrophe that humanity faces. The political quietism
will not last indefinitely.

What can eco-socialists do today to prepare our forces for the historic challenges in front of us?

The decrepit 40-year-old tanker, MT Phoenix, lost its anchor mooring on July 26, 2011, and was pushed to the rocky shoreline in Christmas Bay, 25 kilometres north of Durban.

By Patrick Bond, Durban

August 2, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- There's no way around it: to solve the worsening climate crisis requires we must accept both that the vast majority of fossil fuels must now be left underground, and that through democratic planning, we must collectively reboot our energy, transport, agricultural, production, consumption and disposal systems so that by 2050 we experience good living with less than a quarter of our current levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

That's what science tells our species, and here in South Africa a punctuation mark was just provided by a near-disaster in Durban -- host of the world climate summit, four months from now -- during intense storms with six-metre waves last week. A decrepit 40-year-old tanker, MT Phoenix, lost its anchor mooring on July 26 and was pushed to the rocky shoreline in Christmas Bay, 25 kilometres north of the city.

June 26, 2011 -- Links
International Journal of Socialist Renewal-- Humanity must decrease its
use of energy. The decrease must be a lot (not a little bit) and it must happen
soon. A failure to do so will lay the foundation for the destruction of human
life by some combination of climate change and radiation.

How long will the disastrous
consequences of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan continue? A good
estimate is about 4.5 billion years — the half life of uranium-238. [1] The
March 11, 2011, meltdowns sounded alarms that environmentalists have rung for
over half a century. There is also a deeper green meaning: the limits of
economic growth have long since passed and we need to design a world with considerably
less stuff.

The industry claims
that there is such a thing as a safe level of radiation and that nuclear
production can be safe. Both are profoundly untrue.

June 22, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Television viewers in Australia are being bombarded by an expensive series of PR advertisements extolling how much the giant "energy" corporation Chevron "agrees" with the Australian people's concerns for the environment. In a classic example of "greenwashing", Chevron's "We Agree" campaign is a concerted effort to defuse opposition to its activities around the world.

But as with most capitalist advertising, the truth and reality behind the glossy claims are very different, as the True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report below highlights in extensive detail. Fortunately too, the satirical exposers of corporate shams the Yes Men joined forces with the environmental groups
Amazon Watch and the Rainforest Action Network to issue a
bogus press release and set up a phony website to expose the "We Agree" campaign.